In 2014, the number of outbound trips made by residents on the Chinese mainland exceeded 100 million. The number stood at 120 million last year, a marked surge compared with 2.98 million in 1992, according to government statistics.

China is also the fourth-largest country for inbound tourism. The number of inbound tourist trips has increased from 1.8 million in 1978 to 130 million last year.

The revenue generated by inbound tourism has increased from $263 million to $113.65 billion during the same period.

Moreover, the booming tourism industry has played an increasingly important role in promoting the country's economic development.

By the end of last year, there were more than 27,300 travel agencies around the country, compared with 7,355 in 1999.

The tourism industry contributed 10.1 percent to the country's GDP in 2015, outnumbering other industries including education, banking and automobile, according to estimates by World Travel and Tourism Council.

The added value of the tourism industry totaled 7.11 trillion yuan, accounting for 10.5 percent of the national GDP, compared with 9.4 percent in 2012, according to the State Information Center.

Some 79.11 million people worked in tourism or related sectors in China last year, accounting for 10.2 percent of the country's total working population, and has greatly helped with employment of surplus rural laborers as more than 60 percent of employees in the industry are from rural areas, according to statistics.

As a sector of the service industry, tourism is also an important source of growth in supply-side reform, which was initiated by the government last year, Li said.

The government should promote the integrated development of tourism and other industries and build an industrial mechanism to improve the quality and quantity of tourism products, which is in strong demand from consumers, he said.